Turning North

We sure enjoyed our time in Murphy, the Peachtree Cove campground is one of our favorites, so peaceful, quiet, and dark, and a pretty little stream right through the park!  But we didn't only spend our time chilling, we did quite a bit of exploring, walking, and of course eating:-)

A couple more pics right in the campground.

 And a lot of the eating was prepared by us.

Baked cod with veg

Murphy has a network of trails along the river, some paved and some more rustic, we did several and the paved one twice, about a mile each way, with some gorgeous weather.

Part of the paved path

Along the way

Although we had been to many of the towns around, we were getting confused as to which was which and what we remembered about each so we took off one day up the Nantahala River to the Nantahala Outdoor Center for lunch and then over to Bryson City, and back through Robbinsville to prompt our memory then back to the campground, beautiful ride.

Another day we wanted to go into Dahlonega, one of our favorite little towns to walk around and have lunch, ha!  We should have done some homework first, we noticed an inordinate amount of traffic several miles out.  Turned out they were having a huge event in town, and there was NO parking anywhere nearby, so we punted and headed over to Cleveland for a BBQ lunch and back, ended up being over 140 miles after the detours.

Then our last day there we decided to go back up to the little Nantahala to see if the water came down, but it was still up, purposely, for a major kayaking event.  We watched for awhile and headed back.  

We had all of 28 miles to go to our next stop, Blue Ridge, GA to a nice KOA there, and Peachtree Cove was nice enough to let us stay past normal checkout time so we didn't have to cool our jets somewhere along the way to keep us from arriving too far ahead of check in time at the KOA.  We made the grueling drive and got set up in our site.

Good friends, John and Diane came up the next day for a nice visit, we met for a good lunch in Ellijay, at River Street Tavern, walked around a bit, then went to a cool brewery in Blue Ridge for a mid afternoon stout, porter, and ale, nice place, Grumpy Old Men Brewery.  Then back to the motorhome for a fire, happy hour, dinner, and cigars, solved many of the world's problems.  Then we met the next day at Rocco's Pub in Jasper for a great lunch and an adios as they headed back home and we went back to the motorhome after a great scenic ride.

That left us with a project that has been taunting us for quite awhile, our failing indicator light for the truck's braking system that I have mentioned numerous times.  It has been intermittent for a long time and we have replaced fuses, fuse block, air powered switch, rewired everything up to the switch, and then from the switch forward.  I have checked connections at the light and even provided a new dedicated ground for the light.  Yes this is all been done so I can see while driving to be sure the truck's brakes are on when I apply the brakes on the coach.  A good thing to know, and also even better to see if the truck's brakes are on when they shouldn't be.  Through all of this, I would put in a new fuse and it would work for 10 minutes or a day and a half until the fuse blew again.  We decided that the final item would be running an entirely new wire from the rear of the coach to the light at the driver's seat.  This meant a diesel mechanic, Jan project, one she was not looking forward to.  Well we are parked on a nice concrete pad here and the weather was perfect so the day arrived.

I rigged up a spool so it would be easier for Jan to pull the wire.

And off she went!

Now I can tell you there is nothing worse than working on something and getting it fixed, but not being sure what caused the problem, because until you do it is apt to happen again and again.  Happily Jan found the issue that has been plaguing us all this time.  The original wire had chaffed and every once in awhile it must have touched the metal chassis, shorted and blew out the fuse.  She put anti chaffing on the new wire to prevent this from happening again.

The culprit 

Started with a tube taped on and then she covered this with conduit

We are extremely confident we have fixed this issue that has been bugging us off and on for almost a year!

So yesterday we did something a lot of you would truly wonder about, especially if you aren't bourbon drinkers:-)  Twice a year Total Wine has a bourbon lottery, if you are in their points program and have accumulated enough points, you get invited to a lottery for as many as 10 different high end bourbons, essentially unavailable in normal places.  From Pappy Van Winkle to Weller to Blanton's, you list in order which ones you are interested in, and willing to pay for, some are very expensive, and then if you "win" you are notified you have a week or so to come in and pick up the one bottle you have "won".  Well I won a bottle of Blanton's, one of my favorites that is all but unavailable normally, so the fact it would require a 72 mile drive one way was no problem:-)

We took advantage of the trip and had a delicious chicken soup lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, went to Whole Foods because Jan and I wanted make cioppino again, and of course picked up my bottle.  But it was a beautiful day for a drive!  And talk about serendipity, as we were going down a road in Kennesaw, GA, Jan looked up and said OMG, there's Karen and Tom!  Karen is Jan's sister and they are moving north in their motorhome as well to meet us outside of Portland, ME in May, to think they went by us and we were both there in a place neither one thought we'd be, to run by each other was amazing.

This was seriously delicious!

Then back for our last evening before heading north, beautiful weather, a little Blanton's, a good cigar, wonderful company, what could be better?

North Carolina

I left you last as we arrived in Waynesville to pouring rain.  The next day rain or shine we had several things we wanted to accomplish, and first was to go into Asheville for lunch, always food, right?  We had been to Wild Ginger in the fall and it was so good we had to repeat and we can report it was just as good, absolutely scrumptious pho and Banh Mi.

Then we hit Publix since it would be the last place in our summer's travels we would be able to shop at Publix, also we got some fresh fish at Whole Foods thinking it would also be the last for that until we get up into Maine and can get really fresh fish:-)  

The next day was overcast and cool, but perfect for driving a big loop through the cute town of Sylva.  We found a small lake to have our picnic lunch.

It was chilly with the wind, but nice to get out.    But we did see some beautiful views.

The next day was beautiful and almost warm so we went into Waynesville for lunch at Sweet Onion, made a reservation this time after getting burned last year, and after a good lunch we walked all over Waynesville.  It's a nice small town and not yet filled with tourists like in the summer and especially the fall.  After a ride around the area to the east of Waynesville and west of Asheville we headed back and met our new neighbors, Roz and Dave.  They had just gone through a horrible experience with their 5th wheel and told us they had been delayed.  Their 5th came off the truck!!!  The safety cables kept it attached but it did damage to their pickup truck, but amazingly did little damage to the 5th.  But understandably, they were traumatized by the event, and as the hitch manufacturer told them, that never happens?!?  We found we had a lot in common and really enjoyed meeting them.

Us in the middle and their 5th to the left in the picture

The next day was haircut day for me, and after we both looked at each other and said let's go back to Wild Ginger for lunch.  So off we went and we both enjoyed a bowl of pho.  After we drove south down through Hendersonville, on to Brevard before circling back, and in the process discovered some absolutely beautiful water for future fishing, Looking Glass Creek and the Davidson River in the Pisgah Forest so lots of access.

When we got back, the campground was full of activity, it seems a huge tree fell down right behind our sites across the stream that runs through the campground, and a tree service had been called in to remove it from the waterway.  It was interesting to watch what looked like a father-son team take care of it.  I don't think they were anticipating an audience:-)

Dad working his way out on the main log to affix the tow rope.

Then the son making his very cold way out to cut the log in half.

Then it being pulled across and out of the stream.  The next is a picture of the machine pulling it.

A lot of excitement in the old campground:-)  We did see some nice views and a tiny cute church on our ride.

Then we got together with Roz and Dave for drinks and appetizers, had a nice visit and solved many of the problems in the world before we got rained out again.

The rain got heavier and heavier and was still pouring when we had to leave to move down to Murphy, oh well, can't win them all.  So now we are in one of our favorite little campgrounds, Peachtree Cove, for several days.  

We went out for lunch in Blairsville to a great cuban place, Nina's, then took a ride up to the Nantahala where we planned to fish.  Jan said hold off on buying our licenses until we check out the water, turned out to be a stellar idea since the river was higher than we have ever seen it before.  No fishing.  We checked with a couple of guys that work for the power company and they told us since they had a transformer out they were diverting the water into the river for the next several days.  Oh well there's always this fall.  But the high water made for some beautiful falls.

Then on the way back, looking for another place to fish, we found an access to an interesting river, the Valley River, the same one that flows through the campground.  They have a nice mile long walking path along the river and while we were walking we saw an interesting fish seine.  We assume it is either for research or it is set up by the Cherokee tribe.

So we plan to sightsee some more and may return to Valley River to fish after all.

Sound! And On to North Carolina

We had reservations at the Mount Pleasant KOA just north of Charleston and we found out there was a Costco only about a mile away, so as soon as we arrived we ran over to see if they had a small sound bar that we could install for our bedroom TV.  Sure enough they had a Bose unit that answered our needs.  We came back and thought we could get it all installed before cocktail hour.  Ha, why do these things just never go right?  Turned out our new small 27" TV we bought didn't have any audio outputs nor Bluetooth, now what?  Found out the DirecTV Genie client had an audio output, could we use that?  The sound bar came with an optical audio cable, but the client didn't have that, only a digital audio plug that takes a coax digital sound cable, none to be had at the local hardware stores, Lowes, or even BestBuy.  So Amazon to the rescue.  We had it shipped to arrive the next day at an Amazon drop box not too far away.

Once the cable arrived, it was a simple task to get it hooked up and working, success!

Back to the campground, we were very, very disappointed.  We had reserved a patio site, a little more money, but as we made our way to the site we had to negotiate huge potholes and puddles, then when we saw the site which was some gravel but mostly weeds and our patio was under at least a 1/2" of crap, we were a bit miffed.  Then looking around the park it looked as if the grass/weeds had never been mowed.  All this for over $100/night!  We would recommend if you come to visit Charleston, find another place to stay.

Looks pretty good from this angle especially after we cleaned it up

We wanted to get some more oysters while here, and we were successful, had a nice river view on a murky day.

We didn't plan on going downtown and the weather wasn't cooperating so we found another seafood market and bought even more shrimp, they were delicious, to put in the freezer.

It was a short visit and next we were off to North Carolina, Linwood, between Winston-Salem and Charlotte.  It was a quick overnight, somewhere to stay on our way to Waynesville.  We stayed at Cross Winds and it was delightful, huge sites, lots of privacy, nice walking, a really nice place we would recommend:-)

Cheers!

We even made homemade onion soup for dinner, delish!

Then an off and on rainy day with a detour for a huge traffic backup outside of Asheville we pulled into a beautiful site at Creekwood Farm right on a creek.  Another wonderful place we would highly recommend in Waynesville, NC.

Awesome, right?  We hunkered down all day yesterday as it poured all day, so our sightseeing will begin today:-)  But we did make a delicious dinner of cod, fried spicy corn over some grits for dinner.  You know I just can't get away from the food.